Definition of "hatch" in Anglais

noun

1. A horizontal door in a floor or ceiling.

   • Moving the wardrobe revealed a previously hidden hatch in the ground.

2. A trapdoor.

3. An opening in a wall at window height for the purpose of serving food or other items. A pass through.

   • The cook passed the dishes through the serving hatch.

4. A small door in large mechanical structures and vehicles such as aircraft and spacecraft often provided for access for maintenance.

5. (nautical) An opening through the deck of a ship or submarine

6. (slang) A gullet.

7. A frame or weir in a river, for catching fish.

8. A floodgate; a sluice gate.

9. (Scotland) A bedstead.

10. (mining) An opening into, or in search of, a mine.

verb

1. (transitive) To close with a hatch or hatches.

verb

1. (intransitive, of young animals) To emerge from an egg.

   • These three chicks hatched yesterday morning.

2. (intransitive, of eggs) To break open when a young animal emerges from it.

   • She was delighted when she heard the crackling sound of the eggs hatching.

3. (transitive) To incubate eggs; to cause to hatch.

   • I'm hatching this mysterious egg I found in the forest.

4. (transitive) To devise (a plot or scheme).

   • World domination was only one of the evil schemes he had hatched over the years.

noun

1. The act of hatching.

2. (figurative) Development; disclosure; discovery.

3. (poultry) A group of birds that emerged from eggs at a specified time.

   • These pullets are from an April hatch.

4. (often as mayfly hatch) The phenomenon, lasting 1–2 days, of large clouds of mayflies appearing in one location to mate, having reached maturity.

   • a. 1947, Edward R. Hewitt, quoted in 1947, Charles K. Fox, Redistribution of the Green Drake, 1997, Norm Shires, Jim Gilford (editors), Limestone Legends, page 104, The Willowemoc above Livington Manor had the largest mayfly hatch I ever knew about fifty years ago.

5. (informal) A birth, the birth records (in the newspaper).

   • hatch, match, and dispatch

verb